


eyes of a warlock

by ghostinthebook



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, How Do I Tag, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, POV Magnus Bane, Past Abuse, Supportive Alec Lightwood, Trauma, Warlock Marks (Shadowhunter Chronicles), mentions of 2x08 and 2x18, mentions the spoils room from The Infernal Devices, so there's that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 08:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19849453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostinthebook/pseuds/ghostinthebook
Summary: Magnus explains to Alec why he always keeps his glamor up.





	eyes of a warlock

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the fact that Magnus in Shadowhunters almost always has his glamor up, while book!Magnus almost always has it down. i really wanted to see more fics where it goes into the trauma Magnus must be feeling, in order to hide such a big part of him literally almost all the time. enjoy!!!

“You know, you don’t have to keep up your glamor all the time,” Alec said. “I don’t mind.”

Magnus froze.

They were just finishing up dinner, not even talking all that much, when Alec said that, out of the blue. He didn’t know what suddenly brought this up; he hadn’t said anything about it lately, neither of them had. It was just an unspoken truth between them.

Except for very specific circumstances, Magnus glamored his cat eyes.

The only times his glamor went down were when he couldn’t control it. The last time Magnus could remember willingly showing his cat eyes was at Max’s rune party, all that time ago. Other than that, it was only when he couldn’t keep up the glamor. He almost never chose to show his warlock mark, when given the choice.

He knew that Alec didn’t mind. His words, the first time he had seen Magnus’s eyes, had helped him come to that conclusion.

“They’re beautiful,” Alec had said. “You’re beautiful.”

That was certainly a first.

There were so many other words people had used, seeing those golden eyes. So many people, calling him a monster. A demon, sent from hell. An abomination. Something horrible, something damned. Not a person, shouldn’t be alive.

People had tried to kill him because of his eyes before.

None of them succeeded.

When other Downworlders saw them, the best he usually got was neutrality. An “oh”, and that was it. He often avoided showing his mark to Downworlders, as well as Shadowhunters and, of course, mundanes.

Alec was probably the first person to see his eyes, this much, in several decades.

“I know you don’t mind,” Magnus said, getting up from the table. He held his hand out to Alec, who grabbed it and followed Magnus to the couch. They sat together, still holding hands, facing each other.

“Then why do you do it?” Alec asked. “I love your brown eyes just as much as I love your golden eyes, but you don’t need to always glamor them. Is there another reason you do it?”

“Well…” Magnus started, not looking Alec in the eyes. “I don’t think I’m really… ready to have my mark showing, more than it already is.”

It already feels like he’s showing it too much, sometimes. Like the next time he shows someone, they’d think of him as a monster, too. The next time someone sees it, they’ll want to kill him, too. Take his mark, put it in their spoils room.

Spoils… Magnus still felt sick at the thought.

Tessa told him, once, of the spoils room in Starkweather mansion, back in the late 1800’s. As far as Magnus knew, she was the only warlock, only Downworlder even, to have ever seen a spoils room. It was filled with the fangs of vampires, the claws of werewolves, the marks of warlocks. A delicate set of wings, from a faerie. A warlock’s horns, another’s eyes in a jar. The silver bullets that had killed werewolves.

Tessa cried when she told him about it.

Now was not the time to think of spoils, though, Magnus thought. If he did, he’d need some whiskey, or a martini, something with alcohol. Time to think and reflect. He didn’t have either right now, and he needed to talk to Alec.

“What?” Alec asked, looking confused.

Alec was mortal, just a few years older than twenty. Some warlocks hadn’t even stopped aging, by his age. Alec was smart, but there were just some things that you knew by living through. He was young, he wasn’t a warlock. He didn’t have the same perspective.

This would take some explanation.

“For years, people killed warlocks for their marks. I lived, for a while, in a time where that was completely legal. My eyes would have been put in a jar, for some psycho Shadowhunter to look at every once in a while. Thankfully, I survived, but I knew too many people that didn’t. On a personal level, people called me a monster when they saw my eyes. They became afraid of me, thought I must be inherently evil. Some of the best responses to them I’d ever gotten was indifference. So, there’s a lot of history with my warlock mark. I… I just can’t. It will take a long, long, time for me to be able to willingly put my glamor down and be completely comfortable with it.”

At some point, Magnus had started tearing up. He wasn’t much of a crier, but this was a heavy subject, for him.

If he had to put his glamor down, have his cat eyes out, it would be hard. He would be uncomfortable, and probably a bit paranoid, too.

He wondered if there was a parallel universe, out there, where he had his cat eyes out, all the time. Where he wore his warlock mark proudly. He didn’t doubt that there was; if his life had gone differently, he might have been like that, himself. It would take time for him to get to that level.

As a tear fell down his cheek, he felt Alec’s hand, wiping away the tear. Moving to the back of his neck, as Alec moved forward, putting his arms around him.

“I’m so sorry for what my ancestors did,” Alec said. He sounded somewhat choked up, like he was about to cry, too. “Your eyes are beautiful. I don’t care how many times I’ll have to say that for you to believe it, but I’ll keep on saying it. I love you so much, Magnus.”

“I love you too,” Magnus said, melting into the hug.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is ghost-on-paper, hope you guys enjoyed!!!


End file.
